i'd worked at fox before i came to npr. and, you know, jon... >> jon: you thought you had proved to them at some level that you were not a bigot. >> i didn't think i needed to prove it. i've written... i wrote "eyes on the prize." i've win the well-received biography of justice marshall, the first african american on the court. i didn't think i needed to prove to anybody who i am. but i was stunned that they would... i said did you guys look at the entirety of the transcript? do you understand what's going on here? that i'm, in fact, challenging bill o'reilly. that i'm trying to say we need to affirm the idea that america's a place of religious tolerance even as america deals with what is the real anxiety over the link between arab extremism and terrorism. we have to acknowledge it. and to just say oh, it doesn't exist, can't say that, only allows those feelings to fester and then you have eruptions and people do wild and crazy things, awful things. did you hear this? no, nothing you can say, we don't want you to come in, w